The present invention relates to a group control elevator system, and in particular to a group control elevator system having an improved adjustment function for adapting operation of elevators to individual utilization states of the elevators for each building.
Conventional technology of group control elevator systems are known as described in the Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. JP-A-58-52162 and JP-A-5863668, for example.
In the systems techniques described in the above publications, variable parameters are used to structure an "allocation evaluation function" for evaluating the allocation of an elevator cage which provides service to a call for an elevator car at a boarding floor, and control of the elevator operation is carried out by allocating the call for an elevator cage to the cage which optimizes this evaluation function. In the meantime, the group control elevator system learns a state of move of elevator utilizers which shows a unique and individual pattern depending on the building in which the elevator system is accommodated, by classifying the move state by individual characteristics as a "traffic flow". Then, based on a simulation which is carried out by utilizing the traffic flow that has been learned, a control method (the variable parameter) is automatically adjusted. An optimum group control of the elevator system is realized for each traffic flow of each building having the elevator system, based on the combination of the group control function, the traffic flow learning function and the automatic adjusting function.
As another conventional technology of a group elevator control system, control of an elevator system by considering many target items such as reduction in an elevator car boarding time and reduction in crowdedness of a cage as well as the conventional reduction in an elevator car waiting time is disclosed in the HITACHI HYORON, Vol. 71, No. 5 of 1989-5, pp. 115-122. This control system makes it possible to set many targets such as reduction in waiting time, reduction in boarding time and reduction in crowdedness of an elevator cage, and realizes a group control elevator system to meet the requirement of the utilizers.
In the above-described group control elevator system for controlling the operation of the elevator system based on an overall evaluation of many purposes, how to take balance among the targets causes a concern and, therefore, there is a problem that the group control elevator system is more seriously affected by a traffic flow which is possessed by individual buildings than other conventional systems. Accordingly, in order to expect an elevator control system which meets the actual situation, a self-adaptive technology is required as disclosed in the above JP-A-58-52162.
However, if a system for automatically adjusting a variable parameter by simulation, like the above-described conventional technique, is used directly for multi-purpose control, the number of kinds of parameters to be adjusted increases. The number of simulations required to obtain an optimum value for all the parameters in this case increases by the power of a combination of the variable parameters, so that a very large number of simulations is required. Accordingly, there is a problem that a very long time is required before an optimum elevator control operation is effected to meet the change in the elevator car utilization state if the control is to be based on the variable parameters obtained by a large number of simulations.